The charges make Omar al-Bashir the first sitting president indicted by ICC for genocide. The president is also being charged for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

According to the BBC, prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told judges at The Hague on Monday that Bashir bore criminal responsibility for “alleged atrocities committed over the past five years.”

Now the three-judge panel must decide if the charges justify an arrest warrant.

Sudan, meanwhile, has responded by saying an indictment would be meaningless. “We don’t recognise whatever comes out from the ICC, to us it is non-existent,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadig said.

The White House has responded to the charges by urging all parties in Sudan to “remain calm” and that it would “monitor the situation” in The Hague.

The humanitarian crisis in Darfur began in 2003 as rebel groups in the region began to clash with government forces over the allocation of natural resources. Since then, rebel groups have fought against the national army and the Janjaweed, an Arab militia that has reportedly targeted civilians and that many accuse of being funded by the government.

The United Nations believes that between 200,000 and 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur and 2.5 million have been made homeless since 2003.

The BBC reports that Moreno-Ocampo found “reasonable grounds” to believe Bashir bears criminal responsibility on 10 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The BBC story includes a detailed list of the charges, as well as a summary of the case in PDF format.

The UN considers Darfur to be one of the “world’s greatest humanitarian crises.” In 2003, the UN alerted nations to a war in a small part of Darfur. At first, many believed the scale of the conflict was much smaller than it actually was, but soon reports from Darfurians surfaced about the genocide taking place in the region.

The UN estimated a sharp rise in deaths in Darfur in April, saying that after four years of improvements, troop delays and a lack of a viable political solution threatened to reverse gains in the war-torn region.

Some activists say an arrest would be welcome, but many observers are concerned about such a move, reports Voice of America. “It might also lead to some sort of reprisals against peacekeepers on the ground or an exacerbation of the armed conflict situation,” said Souare.

Jonathan Steele warns against the ICC indicting Omar as-Bashir in the Guardian.” Who would benefit from this? Almost no one. The conflict in Darfur is too complex and the attempts to resolve it are too delicate for so one-sided and blunt an approach.”

Omar al-Bashir came to power during an Islamist-backed coup in 1989, according to a BBC profile on the Sudanese President. Since he began his presidency, he has introduced elements of Sharia law, opposed by mainly Christian and animist rebels in the south.

The International Criminal Court is “an independent, permanent court that tries persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes,” according to its Web site.

CNN provides questions and answers about the crisis in Darfur on its Web site, including information about how the violence began, who is involved and what is being done in terms of peacekeeping efforts.